加州大学-伯克利

The German undergraduate major program provides students with the knowledge, experience, language fluency, and analytical skills necessary to enter the academic world or the world of international law or global business. It offers a large selection of courses in literature, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, history, film, and business, along with opportunities to study abroad. The program provides students with the skills they will need to achieve their individual goals.

Students are challenged to gain fluency in the German language, read major works by Kafka, Freud, and Nietzsche (among many others) in their original language, and to venture abroad to German speaking countries to embrace new cultures. This gives students the cultural competence and necessary edge in today’s global marketplace.

If students choose to major or double major in German at Berkeley, they will enjoy an atmosphere that resembles that of an Ivy League setting, including the opportunity to study with world-famous professors and highly qualified graduate student instructors.

Learning Goals for the Major

• The undergraduate program provides students with the knowledge, experience, language fluency, and analytical skills necessary to enter the academic and the professional world. Students learn in both written and oral form to identify, present, and construct arguments about different types of discourses, major cultural and historical forms and movements, the work of important authors, and the history of ideas. Students learn to analyze and interpret texts, films and other German cultural artifacts from various historical periods and various social backgrounds.
• Upper level courses refine their understanding of language, language learning and language use, as well as of German literature, history, and culture, and further develop their ability to produce German spoken and written texts. Students choose their courses from a variety of offerings, and such choices reflect the specific interest and learning goals of the individual student within the framework of the departmental curriculum.

Honors Program

Students with at least a 3.5 GPA in all upper division courses taken to fulfill the requirements of the major and a 3.3. GPA overall are eligible for admission into the honors program. Candidates for honors in German need to apply to the undergraduate faculty adviser for admission into this program, ideally early in the fall semester of their senior year.